Did I miss something?

Went on Amazon today to order the new Avengers End Game 4K BD today and it wan't available? Are they just sold out or is there something else going on here. Why wouldn't just take my order and ship it when they can.

Meanwhile it is already available on DTV and perhaps other sources to stream/download...

Disney has always had a bank vault grip on their titles. They have always sold their titles like Cinderella and such for a very limited time and all stores and online site had to return all unsold merchandise. Then 6 yrs later the new and improved will come out and wash, rinse and repeat down the road again.

Plus the bad guy could handle Thors Hammer too ?? WTF ?? The whole back in time thing didn't even make sense. Made time travel seem like it was an app on your phone, so easy a caveman can do it. Horrible for fans.

It was soo obvious that this whole movie was a setup to introduce a new Marvel era with more women as hero's, and more....let's just say "modern" gender identities. Obvious Marvel has no clue or even care about the fans that made them what they are, in exchange for what they perceive as a new fan base. How to ruin a brand in 3-2...

In this case it's not an issue with Amazon and a movie studio. The release date is on Tuesday for the disc format. But, it is possible that the distributor may send preorder product to vendors it prefers first and Amazon not having a preorder option up yet may mean the distributor is putting the choke on them for a while. Or it could be that Amazon wants to maximize profits by only providing a streaming option at first. Best Buy may be the next biggest seller, and they do tend to charge a couple bucks more.

The streaming version is of course much easier and cheaper to release and distribute and maybe more profitable. In that realm Amazon is competing with cable and satellite as well as Vudu and Netflix. There's a more competitive market for the discs online and in the few stores that sell 4K discs which is why the studios want to keep the pricing in line across vendors they supply. Has an element of price fixing to it, but the pattern is for a hot 4K disc that comes out at $29.99 to be selling at $19.99 or less in 4 to 6 months. I still won't buy any single movie above the twenty dollar mark.

There is also an element of marketing science involved with the way the different versions are priced and sold. Marketers know that many people think the cheaper option in dollars is the more sensible one because they are "saving" money by not getting physical media. It is also true that some don't like storage clutter. But, for those who are in to quality, it only costs a couple to a few dollars more to buy the 4K version which comes with the streaming version through Movies Anywhere and a superior disc version in terms of sound quality and picture quality.

The streaming version by itself is way overpriced for what it is which is why Amazon and the movie studio will make a ton of money on it. Maybe even more than box office receipts. For friends who don't like clutter and are only going to watch a movie once, I usually say just do an on demand rental.

Plus the bad guy could handle Thors Hammer too ?? WTF ?? The whole back in time thing didn't even make sense. Made time travel seem like it was an app on your phone, so easy a caveman can do it. Horrible for fans.

It was soo obvious that this whole movie was a setup to introduce a new Marvel era with more women as hero's, and more....let's just say "modern" gender identities. Obvious Marvel has no clue or even care about the fans that made them what they are, in exchange for what they perceive as a new fan base. How to ruin a brand in 3-2...

In this case it's not an issue with Amazon and a movie studio. The release date is on Tuesday for the disc format. But, it is possible that the distributor may send preorder product to vendors it prefers first and Amazon not having a preorder option up yet may mean the distributor is putting the choke on them for a while. Or it could be that Amazon wants to maximize profits by only providing a streaming option at first. Best Buy may be the next biggest seller, and they do tend to charge a couple bucks more.

The streaming version is of course much easier and cheaper to release and distribute and maybe more profitable. In that realm Amazon is competing with cable and satellite as well as Vudu and Netflix. There's a more competitive market for the discs online and in the few stores that sell 4K discs which is why the studios want to keep the pricing in line across vendors they supply. Has an element of price fixing to it, but the pattern is for a hot 4K disc that comes out at $29.99 to be selling at $19.99 or less in 4 to 6 months. I still won't buy any single movie above the twenty dollar mark.

It was that this was the first time I tried to pre order and it was un available for pre order....Even if the sold out their allocation it always was able to let me pre order it and might backorder it.

The first time I remember the distributor choke hold was a few years ago with one of the Stars Wars movies and them trying to kick Amazon and others into line to maximize profit on something that was expected to be a very big seller. That was before streaming was as big a market as it is now. I suspect Amazon is perfectly happy to sell the streaming version first and they'd probably have a good legal case if they were denied access to that. If Amazon really wanted to sell the discs badly enough they'd get those for release on Tuesday too.

The first time I remember the distributor choke hold was a few years ago with one of the Stars Wars movies and them trying to kick Amazon and others into line to maximize profit on something that was expected to be a very big seller. That was before streaming was as big a market as it is now. I suspect Amazon is perfectly happy to sell the streaming version first and they'd probably have a good legal case if they were denied access to that. If Amazon really wanted to sell the discs badly enough they'd get those for release on Tuesday too.

Not going to quote all of your posts but this is exactly what I said it is...

Amazon wants to set the price lower than Disney wants to allow and also take a larger chunk of the profits.
They also want to be able to ship before the release day of the physical media (i.e. they want them arriving at the customer Monday, not Tuesday).
Disney will have none of it.
Disney said flat out, you sell at the same price we require everyone else to sell it at as we set prices.
Disney also refused to let them ship if there is ANY chance the physical media will be received before their expressly stated release date.

Endgame isn't the first time this has happened. It has been happening for about 2 or so years now with all Marvel titles on Amazon. As well as the Star Wars titles since Disney acquired that franchise.

I am just thinking/reflecting on this idea of top-down pricing. Wasn't that outlawed in the US quite a few years (decades) ago?

Personally, it seems to me that a manufacturer/producer/maker/whatever ought to be able to set a prix fixe (so to speak), but I also think I remember that the FTC or whomever regulates such things in the US didn't concur with me.

I also wonder what difference it makes to a consumer whether s/he gets something the day of, the day before, or the day after its release, but I know this just shows a) I'm old and b) I am no company's target demographic.

I am just thinking/reflecting on this idea of top-down pricing. Wasn't that outlawed in the US quite a few years (decades) ago?

Personally, it seems to me that a manufacturer/producer/maker/whatever ought to be able to set a prix fixe (so to speak), but I also think I remember that the FTC or whomever regulates such things in the US didn't concur with me.

The first time I encountered this was with the Sega Genesis game console in the early 90’s, when I worked for a local discount retailer. I remember the rep telling me that we were NOT allowed to discount the sale of the Genesis under ANY circumstances. Further, doing so could jeopardize the company’s ability to sell them in the future. I also encountered this later in my career with Maytag appliances - the retail price was set by Maytag, and we were not allowed to deviate. They called it “unilateral pricing”, and again, the company’s contract would be endangered if the pricing was violated.

Maybe there’s an angle I don’t see, but I fail to understand why the manufacturer would care what the goods sold for, once they got the sale to retailers. The only thing I can think of, is the dealer network wants protection from the larger (Walmart, Amazon) retailers ability to discount. The manufacturer therefor sets the price, to appease ALL the distributors. However, this is done at the expense of the consumer, as it eliminates competition.

Maybe there’s an angle I don’t see, but I fail to understand why the manufacturer would care what the goods sold for, once they got the sale to retailers. The only thing I can think of, is the dealer network wants protection from the larger (Walmart, Amazon) retailers ability to discount. The manufacturer therefor sets the price, to appease ALL the distributors. However, this is done at the expense of the consumer, as it eliminates competition.

The discounting cheapens the brand by definition, I'd opine.

Supposed the prix fixe MSRP (i.e., manufacturer's mandatory retail price) for an item is $50, but Walmart (or Amazon) sells it for $30. It instantly becomes a thirty dollar item -- even if every other outlet in the world sells (or tries to sell) it for fifty.

I kind of thought so, too, so I looked it up -- it's only considered price fixing if multiple companies (competitors) conspire to normalize their prices (e.g., if two energy companies both agreed to sell gas for $3.33 a gallon). Check that FTC link above, and also this one:

So when multiple companies agree to fix the price of an item and a competitor would like to discount it... that's not price fixing.... I think I get it now.

No, that is price fixing ,assuming the 'multiple companies' are dealing in the same product ("content", in this case). Walmart and Target are (sort of) competitors, but not with Disney. Per the law regulations.

Oh.
And I realized, while cleaning the bathroom floor what I was thinkin' of in my first post to this thread was the old practice of "fair trade" -- which, I think, in the 1950s and 1960s meant something different, at least in the US, than it does now.